Max
by theevilestgeekofall
Summary: So, Dave spent his life barely progressing down the road of transformation. However...little does he know, death doesn't necessarily mean an end to that journey. Transformations, spiritual as well as physical, promised. Review.
1. Chapter 1

In a tired parked truck sat the dark-haired boy; he slumped over the black steering wheel, thinking of overwhelmingly terrible things. What once read as powerful muscle now sagged and puddled in the silent vehicle: pudgy, fleshy sadness invaded whatever quiet dignity he imagined himself to have.

It is not to say, however, that he held much of any dignity, stepping into the driver's seat on a looming and fateful day. The boy—yes, only a boy—felt miserable beyond any conscious feelings of self-righteousness. Deeply brown eyes glazed over as his mind panned through particular events in his life.

He recalled the last time he had talked with Kurt Hummel—or, rather, he had been talked _to_ by the boy—it was a memory he visited daily, with a certain strange fondness hidden in his perpetual reeling in shame, shame, shame.

His face still flames up with self-disgust upon picturing Kurt approaching him that particular school day. Curiously enough, the day hadn't seemed particular—that's how life works decidedly—he hadn't thought it would be the last time he would stand in front of Kurt so closely, and stare at him so openly, in _conversation_.

Kurt marched up to him as he closed his locker, blue eyes flashing.

"I saw what you did to that freshman," he seethed out, and Dave felt himself begin to melt and buckle.

"Azimio—" he started, with unsurprised but eager desperation—

"No, I don't care who started it. All I know is that you were a part of it."

His chest crumpled to think of the freshman's face, scrunched up in raw and childish fear against familiar brick wall.

"I thought after the prom fiasco, you could only get better, and stronger," Kurt continued, rigidly, "I _believed_ in you. I stood up for you, even when all of my other friends questioned our…friendship. Yet—summer came and went, and you didn't change. Fall…you didn't change. In fact, you've gotten wors—"

"I went to the PFLAG meetings, didn't I?"

"You went to _two_ meetings. That _hardly_ constitutes as enough. Especially for someone so _lost_ in Narnia."

Kurt looked into his sad eyes, and he felt the double flush of then and now.

"I know you really feel sorry. Or, at least, you _did_. But…I'm just not sure what to think of you, anymore. You really _aren't_ going to come out, are you?" Fancy shook his head, with a crushing disappointment. "You need to gain some new perspective. You can't just wallow in your miserable pity party. You have to change things at some point. I am…" Kurt bit his lip, brow creased, in concentrated anger. He sighed. "I am _so_ angry…and _perplexed_…that you would revert to…the bully I thought was gone for good. Even after the BullyWhips, too...your brutish selfishness _astounds_ me, Dave."

The normally composed and cordial boy then let out a grunt of disgust, and brushed past him. Dave watched the flamboyant boy retreat, paralyzed with a million vague thoughts racing.

Dave didn't go to McKinley's crowded graduation, on account of the fact that Grandpa Joel had been dying, with only three days left to live. He never contacted Kurt, ever again. He had considered doing so, however, perhaps somewhere around five thousand times.

He was too afraid to change so abruptly—his friends would have certainly abandoned him: friends whom he'd had for years and years, some even since elementary school. They couldn't know. He couldn't even begin to foresee telling them. The boy could only barely even tell himself the truth, even in the final minutes of his life, sitting in that lonely truck.

And so, after so many years trapped in Lima, Dave decided to venture to another state entirely, attending Iowa State in hopes of being able to be a different person, once there.

Dreams welled within him, and Dave signed up for the school's choir with swelling eagerness. Wearing a fresh face and feeling cheery new, almost immediately Dave began making friends at college.

However, the newness only inspired oldness. Despite the fact that he sang daily in choir, he remained, for all outward purposes, straight. There were many other straight boys singing alongside him (all normal and attractive, a few even distinctively reminiscent of the lumbering thugs Dave had known on his football and hockey teams).

Though he had many friends, he didn't become close with anybody—not really. Every single time The Perfect Moment pounced upon him, Dave's throat tightened and all vocabulary flew out of his brain.

His sad past hung on him like a noose, barring him from ever speaking those happy three words.

There was one Moment that held a particular Perfection in Dave's mind.

A group of choir members had gone out to Applebee's one night. Everyone got gussied up—Dave included—and conversation chattered on lightly and happily throughout the entire meal. Afterwards, as everyone was departing for their respective vehicles, bikes, and destinations, The Perfect Moment leapt blaringly into sight.

Kevin. The shy, slight, bronzed boy had been sitting next to Dave all night, talking with him amicably. The dainty boy approached Dave, as he walked towards his truck (the very same one he sat in now).

"Hey," Kevin whispered out lightly, "I was just wondering…would you like to go out for coffee, sometime?"

Paranoia and shock washed over Dave.

"Sorry, do you mean…like…"

"A date?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, I do."

Dave's mouth fell, agape, and he stood in stark silence, unable to move or say anything. His pounding heart considered the chance, the opportunity to give the reply he truly wished to offer: Yes.

The seconds passed.

Passed.

Passed.

He leaned on instinct, his insides wailing.

"I'm not gay."

"Oh," Kevin looked concerned in his soft embarrassment. "I am _so_ sorry. You just gave off…a gay vibe, I don't know. My bad."

_A gay vibe?_

The next day Dave quit choir, and he never talked with Kevin, ever again.

He was simultaneously disgusted with himself and his actions.

And, if he was being honest: Kevin. Because the tall, meaty male Dave was had never given anybody any sort of _gay vibe_—had he let his guard down?

It was around this time that he realized: the idea of coming out repulsed him, as much as it entranced him. In his life of weakness, Dave decided to give in to repulsion, ashamed.

Days went by. Then weeks; then months. His grades gradually diminished, and the once bright and studious Dave flunked out of Iowa State. He had flunked out only days ago, and now lived in his truck, too scared and in debt to do much of anything.

His thick and muddled figure straightened in the driver's seat, to hear his cellphone ring. It was not the right time, but it was also the perfect time.

"Yes?" His parents. He heard his mother, his father. They sounded happy to hear his voice—he was horrified to hear theirs. Mom asked if he'd met any nice girls, Dad asked about football, among other things.

He wanted to cry and confess everything to them; an overwhelming sentiment that would often find him when talking to them, lately. And, as always, he didn't cry or confess anything. Practiced cheeriness traveled the invisible journey into his parents' ears.

As Dave turned his cellphone off, a particular emptiness flooded his senses.

He gazed down at the stark black shotgun resting on his palm. Black shotgun, black mind, black heart. Everything was dark and ready.

He barely felt the very sensation of pulling the trigger—the pain came insanely instantly, without any mercy. He exploded into a million shards; his chest opened, seeped out, collapsed and the boy begged gargled for air, instinct kicking in.

It was the worst pain imaginable, for seconds or minutes or hours.

Then, he saw familiar gleaming blue surrounding him:

The pain, gone.


	2. Chapter 2

"It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals… and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some strange new disguise."

* * *

><p>"Blue oblivion, largely lit, smiled and smiled at me."<p>

* * *

><p>Upon death, a soul slowly seeps out of its brain, with a painstakingly tender carefulness humans cannot perceive in their vague senses of time. Once free from its old shape, a soul rises to the sky blue heavens above, fated to swirl amidst winds sometimes mere inches above the Earth's surface.<p>

For an indeterminate length of time, a soul circles the globe, in longing search of a new form, a new brain. During its sweeping, churning journey, the soul remains in a simultaneous fashion both omniconscious and unconscious. Without a brain—though certainly with fuzzy, overwhelming senses of once-lived emotions—the soul does not remember its past experiences in its past shells.

The soul simply understands what paths it must take, based off of the subconscious paths previously taken. It is in this understanding, then, that a particular shape is chosen with instinctive care—a soul does not rest until, finally, it happens upon the exact shape it needs to take on upon re-entering the tangible world.

It is not clear as to whether or not a soul can directly recall memories from past lives, once it enters a new brain. Perhaps it is possible.

Perhaps this is all speculation.

* * *

><p><em>Excerpt from:<em>

MAN CLAIMS TO HAVE SEEN THE AFTERLIFE

_Sept 2009_

_Day by Day Newspaper_

"I saw Suzie's green eyes," Paul Grody exclaimed, happily, "I saw her eyes and everything felt peaceful and right."

* * *

><p><em>The Reincarnation Station:<em>

It is a widely-accepted fact that when a person dies, he or she is born into a new existence as another form of life. Exactly what form that new life takes depends on how that person lived his or her previous life.

Those who live honest, virtuous lives often return as powerful, well-respected creatures. Those who live lives of hate and sin, however, typically return as lower forms of life.

* * *

><p>"I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries<p>

and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer;

that I had been born again because I had not fulfilled the task given to me."

* * *

><p>A chocolate brown Labrador Retriever, just born, comes to fragile consciousness as his mother's rough, warm tongue licks him again, again.<p>

He is small, with a tiny, invisible heartbeat.

The world is cold, and strange. He doesn't like it; he is scared, fearful.

His eyes shut, he curls into a ball.

He wants Mother.

He wants Mother!

* * *

><p>He senses new presence around him. He has been sleeping for some time—as he has been passing the time doing just this for days, now. He does not need Mother, necessarily, but he is overwhelmingly happy that she is seemingly forever there.<p>

Mother sniffs around, and the puppy hears swishes amidst and above his tiny body. He tenses up, wanting to bark, but Mother is calm. He is calm. No, he is not calm, but Mother is calm.

"Aw, they're _all_ so _adorable_!" One voice exclaims, lightly.

The puppy swallows and he is thankful that the attention is, undoubtedly, directed towards his swarming, shuffling siblings. A blonde sister is grabbed; she then she disappears entirely from the puppy's sight.

He whimpers, if slightly, and abruptly inches towards Mother.

"I like this one," another voice drawled, booming above him.

"Oh, Blaine, he _is_ a cutie…how on Earth do we choose? The cuteness level of them all truly _astounds_ me…" the voice sighed, and the puppy felt his little heart patter more quickly, for some inexplicable reason. "Can we just get them all?"

Owner Man laughs, now, joining in the two new voices. His tone has a familiar eager gravel to it, which rubs a person in either the wrong or right direction—never any neutrality, however. On this scary occasion, the puppy took the rumbling chuckle to warn of some ominous, horrid future.

Mother!

He scoots closer to Mother, which simultaneously scuffles the floor in a soft, mushy sound, and brings a quick hush to the voices above.

Cool hands grab at him, securely.

He wiggles for his life, but to no avail.

Mother!

His stomach drops as he feels the ground leave him completely—maybe he's miles high in the air, maybe he will die—

The hands cradle the puppy, brushing his short, soft hair.

A certain warmth suddenly seeps between the tiny body and large hands.

Two fingers rubbed tenderly behind small puppy ears; the dog squeals with abrupt happy comfort and pleasure. Mother is forgotten, for now, as the puppy opens his eyes to gaze into large, sparkling pools of blue.

Everything is serene, and silent, and understood, in some strange fashion.

"I want him," the puppy watched those large, soft lips move, in fascination (he has never seen a human so close, before!)

The face smiles, and his stomach flips, he is elated and giddy with infatuation for new adventures.

"Let's name him…Max," the hands hugged the puppy more tightly, warmth enveloping the small dog.

* * *

><p>IF YOUR FAVORITE COLOR IS BLUE:<p>

Your deepest need is to find inner peace and truth.


End file.
